10 days ago...

...we started installing the floor joists, then it rained. Then we installed the first layer of subflooring; it rained. Then we finished the subfloor; it rained. Now we have the walls up; it rained not once but twice! The last time that I checked, we lived in West Texas, not Houston or Seattle.

For those of you who do not know, we are adding on to our house. I hope to have it in-the-dry (which means mostly water tight) in the early part of next week. We have not had much time for anything with this construction, but perhaps when it is done (i.e. in-the-dry) then we will post some pictures.

Enjoy!

Taylor

Happy Birthday!

Our big boy got his first hair cut for his birthday! I love you, little man! :)

Spaghetti

It takes a while to learn to eat spaghetti...

Before you are 1 year old, your parents often don't give you sauce...it is challenge enough to get the noodles in your mouth. (See pic. #1)

By the time you are 2 years old, you get sauce, and use a fork....but it is still a bit messy. (See pic. #2)

After almost 5 years of practice, you can eat spaghetti in a rather civilized fashion! Yeah!!!! :)

Milk For Sale...and other ramblings

I (Taylor, not Alesha) get several comments about how sure someone is that this milk cow thing CANNOT be profitable. I typically just shrug (sp?) my shoulders and let the conversation drop. I do not point out the fact that, assuming they can afford it, that if a man's wife were to ask for a new car, a horse, a vacation, etc., that the husband would likely find a way to give it to her. My wife happens to want a milk cow. She has wanted one for years. The fact the our milk cow actually produces something of value is, I think, a point of envy that some of my friends are trying to justify. :-p

Another point that I only recently realized is that many of the people who make such comments to me DON'T BUY MILK! Ok, maybe they buy a gallon of milk a week at most, but little do they realize that we easily go through 5-6 gallons of milk per week...and that was when we had to buy it and I rarely drank it even though I like it a lot. We also like yogourt, ice cream, butter, whipped cream, and cheese*; that is just a few things that we have been able to make using Annabelle's milk. I wonder if any of these "nay-sayers" have actually put the numbers to this???

From my estimates, it should be close to breaking even including the time involved, though it is hard to value time when Alesha is playing and experimenting with new things. From others who have gone before us, they have noted that a "family cow" is actually somewhat profitable.

I suppose that after all of this the bottom line is that we like our milk cow, Annabell, and that it is good enough for me to see that my wife is happy.


*Hopefully, Alesha will write about our cheese making adventures. She has gotten quite good at making a type of "farmer's cheese" that we like a lot.

Annabelle

Here I sit, drinking milk that is less than 5 hours old! :) Four days ago, we became the proud owners of this 2 year old Jersey! Besides the learning curve of how to pasteurize without completely cooking the milk, everything has gone amazingly smoothly. I asked the Lord to help us pick an animal that would be a good fit with us, and I am thankful for what I feel was His choice. In one day, Annabelle went from being driven along with a herd on a dairy, to being led on a halter rope and tethered in a pasture. By the second day with us, she learned how to get her tether rope untangled from around her hooves, and began nudging her new-found masters for treats in our pockets. :) Only once, so far, has my knot not been snug enough on her tether. I looked up to find her not where I left her; she decided that lawn is much lusher than pasture! :) Some have asked about the time comittment that she adds to already busy days...but consider this...If I had a horse, I would feel bad about daily saying to my children, "sit here on the swing set, I am going to go riding". However, she has to be milked, so other things just have to wait. A lot of good thinking and singing and praying can happen in a 20-30 min. milking session, where all is quiet exept the zing of the milk into the pail, Annabelle's rythmic chewing and the occasional ruccus of a young chicken that can't find his place on the perch. Sure, there are times when Daniel needs a nap and I'd rather be finished, or when I missjuge how long I need and we are late to be somewhere... and she just WILL NOT be hurried...but for the most part, it's not really so much an added chore but an added activity, and a pleasant one at that! :)

Don't have a cow, man!

...but after I got off the phone with our friend who owned a dairy farm, I turned to my wife and instead told her, "You're going to have a cow!"

While some women might have been offended at that kind of talking, my wife beams an "I love you" smile at me. She has been patiently asking for a dairy cow for quite some time and her time has finally come. We are as ready as we are going to be, so Lord willing we will have a new animal on our pasture by next week.

(Now I have to think of some witty remark when someone says, "Don't have a cow!" Any suggestions?)

~Taylor

Corn Scrubbin'

As I walked passed the outside water bowl for our dog and cats I could see a nice think coat of alge growing (perhaps as much as a quarter inch!). I then had a recollection from the past. I remember scrubbing out an old horse trough with a corn husk when I was a boy. We then played in the cleaner water (there were no animals drinking out of it at the time, so it was relatively clean). So looking at my dog's water bowl I had a thought...if only the corn was ready to harvest, but it would be several more weeks before that time. Then I had another thought. I wandered over to the old chicken pen and sure enough there were some left over corn husks from last winter. So I sntched up a few and got to srcubbin'...just like back in the day. After about 10 minutes (yes, there really was that much alge in the bowl) Pete had a nice, mostly clean water bowl again.

"Mama, I have a suprise for you!"

...I hear this many times a day. Usually, the suprise is a flower, a stick, a rock with an interesting shape to it, or a "pretend birthday cake" made from sand from the sand-box. Yesterday, though, when I turned around, my beaming daughter was standing in our kitchen, with a live horney toad! :~) (That is, a horned frog lizard; non-venomous, spikey reptile. ) I had assumed this day would come. I had foolishly thought that I was safe until the boys got older, but that just shows where stereotypes get you! :) Glory let the horney toad go after we took their picture together. She likes them because " they don't bite you, and they eat ants: for breakfast, for lunch, for supper, so you should like them just a bit." I love ya, Glory! :)

Ergonomics-Savey Feline

We have, from Taylor's earlier history as an Engineer, an ergonomically designed office chair. Many who borrow my computer grumble disparagingly as they straddle it. Others simply assume that it is broken. For the record, however, our little kitten, Panther, has figured it out all by himself, and finds it completely comfortable. :) 

Where did my Baby go?

All of the sudden I have a very little boy instead of a baby... Lord, help us to use each day wisely!

Panther

Taylor let the kids and I have a kitten, which we named Panther. He HATES sleeping all by himself in his box, but he is a real snuggler and seems to be finding his place here. I was slightly concerned about the added responsibility of keeping up with him until he learned that we were his people, but thankfully, our Golden Retriever, Pete, is taking his new responsibilities as Kitten-Nanny very seriously.  :~)  

Thankful for a Digital Camera- Part 2

...this was what I was trying to take a picture of in the previous post. :P

Thankful for a Digital Camera

I wonder how much money I save by not having to develop the 11 pictures that look like this for every good one???

Glory's Pretend Adventure

At dusk tonight, I went out to call Glory in for bed...she had been riding her tricycle in her pajamas, talking to herself all the while. I told her it was time to come in and she told me that she was only HALF way to where she was going, and that no, she couldn't continue on tomorrow, because she would forget where she was and have to start ALL over! As she reluctantly, yet obediently parks her wheels in the barn, I asked her where she was going and this is the glimps into her pretend adventure that I got: 

She was going to the "Safety House" because there was a BIG storm. She had been staying in a house with a Mama and a Papa and a lot of girls. Some of the girls had computers and some of them didn't. She did, so she could see her Mama and Papa. I asked her if she shared her computer with the girls that didn't have one, but she said that some of the other girls showed them if they found something that was really funny. :P (So much for my plug for sharing. ) They had to go to the "Safety House" because the big storm had almost broken the house. It pulled all the doors off...and blew all the sand out of the sandbox! The Mama and Papa fixed the house and built new doors and bought 5 new yards of sand. (and yes...I am PROUD that my 4 year old daughter knows to measure pretend sand in yards, but back to the story... :) The "Safety House" is called that because it stays up even in REALLY big storms. When God burns up the world it will be gone, but for regular storms it always stays good! And the next house beside the "Safety House" is a snow cone stand!....

My girl amazes me. :)

Rabbit Soup

When you grow up in "the country" (unlike myself), your worldveiw is a bit different than the typical American. Pascal, our cat, recently caught a small rabbit. While some of you think this is sad, then try to consider how much damage that one rabbit would do to our garden. If you are still feeling sad for the eventual loss of the rabbit then you may not want to read the rest of this post. 

So on with the story...

Glory and I saw Pascal carrying the live baby rabbit around and "playing" with it as cats generally do. I told Glory about why it was good for Pascal to catch and kill the rabbit; she seemed to understand. When Levi woke up he found his sister still watching Pascal and the rabbit. Glory kindly told him what was happening. He seemed content to sit and watch the game. 

Seeing that Pascal was enjoying the audience and making no attempt to kill the rabbit, I scolded him and told him that he should kill the rabbit soon or I would. Glory picks up on the intent of my statement and as I am walking away I hear her saying to Pascal something like, "Pascal, don't you want some rabbit soup?"

New camera...good excuse to add pictures. :)

This is us...except me...since I get to play with the camera and have no new pictures of myself. Enjoy! :)

Flip-flops

My dear daughter is determined that all weather is flip-flop weather. She started out the door this morning with her trusty green "flippies", only to find that it was 40* out there. She came in for warmer clothes and came up with this. :P

The Thumb Sucker

None of our children have ever really sucked on their thumb much. When Glory and Levi were little they used to munch on their fingers when there was not anything else near by. But now there is Daniel, and Daniel knows exactly how to use his thumb. Though we try not to let him suck on it continuously and therefore develop into a habit, it is still really fun to watch him.

Speechless

Every once in a while, one of our little people does something that leaves me completely without a worthy reply. For example, the other day while we were having a nice time rolling around on our new carpet-remnant area rug, getting out the last few sillies before bedtime. Glory, looking concerned, came over and said, "Mama, look!", showing me a mysterious gray gunk on the inside of her shirt tail. After putting bits and pieces of the saga together, I realized that this tale was to crazy to keep to myself, so I sent her to go show Taylor. This is what he heard:

"I was done with my gum." There is a long pause as Taylor finds the courage to ask what she did with it. And then, comes the obvious, if not logical answer..."so I stuck it in my belly button". :P

Sure enough, upon examination, where her belly button should have been, there could only be seen this odd gray glop. Choking back tears of laughter, we marched her to the bathroom. After a lot of Vaseline and the appropriate, "Always, always, ALWAYS put gum in the trash when you are finished with it...NEVER anywhere else...especially your belly button!" admonition, we got ready for bed. Just another day...thank You, Lord, for all of them! :)

Mexico

Here's a picture of Mr. Smith and a few of his friends in Reynosa outside of his new building. I'll try to get a few more pictures up soon!

We are back at Taylor's mom's house now, after spending a few days vacation with Clifford Smith on the Mexican border. On a one-day side trip, Mr. Smith took us to the beach. The rest of the time we went over with him to Reynosa, Mexico. It was a whirlwind trip, but we are very glad to have gone! :) Our Spanish has improved a little since the last time we went to Mexico several years ago, but it still needs a lot of work. Though, as our kids found out, attention-starved children will play with you whether or not you can understand them. Levi enjoyed playing hide and seek and tag with a little boy named Juan. They would run around chasing eachother and roaring like lions! Glory was completely fascinated with the whole concept of being in a foreign country. She's a words and letters person anyway, and is really enjoying this second language thing! One night, Mr. Smith took us, and ten Mexican children to Carl's Jr. (a hamburger place) for supper and to play on the play equipment. Glory had a blast climbing up the slides and laughing with the kids, even though she could only answer a couple of their questions.

We had the priviledge of twirling jump ropes and playing basketball, of holding little-people and spending a wonderful evening talking to house-parents that work in a nearby orphanage. We hope we were a small encouragement to the saints there, but the LORD certainly used it to warm up our hearts! :) We wonder what the LORD has planned for us, but whether He intends for us to work for Him in foreign places or work for Him from our own backyard, but we pray that in His grace, we and our children will be ready to take up our crosses and follow Him!

Laundry

Every once in a while, something extremely ordinary is used to trigger an extra-ordinary wave of thankfulness. Such was the case as I came to the bottom of my laundry pile this afternoon! Thank You, Lord, for my men - the big one and the little ones! :)

and the fun continues...

For the past several days, we have done absolutely nothing productive. Glory, Levi, and Daniel have been sick. Glory had had a minor cough for most of last week, which didn't concern us until her fever spiked on Sunday. Considering her track record and last year's week in the hospital with pneumonia, we took her to Dr. David for an x-ray. They saw a small smudge on the x-ray, which we can't be sure whether is a small pneumonia or simply scarring from before. She was put on a week's worth of antibiotics to be on the safe side. What we do know is that she has a lovely virus that causes bronchitis and fever...we have taught her early in life to share with her brothers, who are now hacking away. ...and tribulation worketh patience and patience experience, and experience, hope, right? (I'm so glad we have that true HOPE that maketh not ashamed! Thank You, Lord, that we have Someone eternal and faithful and lasting to put our hope in! Anyway, back to our saga...Glory is doing much better today and I hope tomorrow to be considered cured (though still finishing up her round of antibiotics.) Levi and Dan still look pretty sad. :( As for Taylor and I, we are waiting for our turn...as often as we have been caughed, sneezed and slobbered on, we are WELL exposed. Yet, we have a lot of friends praying for us! Lord willing, in the next few days, I'll have something more fun to blog about! :)

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose. " Romans 8:28